


Once, You Were A God

by eternalchill



Series: is there anybody out there? [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, F/M, POV Second Person, Reincarnation, Second Chances, Souls, Weird Plot Shit, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-23
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2019-01-21 16:19:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12461403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eternalchill/pseuds/eternalchill
Summary: What if reincarnation isn't always good?





	Once, You Were A God

Once, you were a god. That you know in the same way you know how to run to the secret, hidden parts of the shadows when dawn breaks and turns all beneath the sky a wrenching shade of gold. It’s in the small curl of fog that passes from your mouth to sky when the blued moon rises and spreads it’s wings like an angry sprite.

Once, you were a god.You know this by the tug of _war_ in your heart that bleeds through in the darkest hour of the day and the brightest hour of the night.

Once you were a god.

Once you were _Ka-la_ and the world was spread before you.

Once, once so long ago you were a god.

Now, you are _Ni-men_ and you are the small beggar on the corner, the child hiding in a closet, the wife with bruised fingers fumbling, dropping and loosing the will to fight, the soldier in a distant land under a too hot sun with sands with war woven in the grains.

Now you are the broken hope of a nation, the ache of a dying world and the last aching step of an old man.

You are older than most. The small antics of the small ones: _Ne-va, Siitka_ and _Yaui-t_ , are amusing fantasies that skirt across the boundless acres of your vision. Small hopes, small joys, small successes that mean little to you. The forces that they manipulate mean little and with a wave you can undo them, cause maelstroms with a blink, plagues with a sigh and floods to cover continents when you step wrong.

You are _Ka-la_ , and you are mighty.

* * *

 

When you are born the first time, it's to a people with wide, wide eyes and wild voices. They are young as in terms of all things, but then, back then so are you. _Shhhiib_ they call you in your cradle when your limbs are curled and tucking around your ear and winding around your back. These people move often, crawling over mountain ranges with their many limbs like a swarm and devouring all before them. You learn to hold tight to your mother’s back when she moves. Your long, long limbs curl around her brown, scale plated waist that shines copper under a white sun.

_Shhhiib_ your friend-companion-lover calls you when you have grown and there is an egg binding you together. You spin a cradle like the one you knew when your copper plates were soft and white to hold your child when you move, because you know they won’t be able to hold on after leaving the egg and there remains a constant hunger telling you to _move move move_.

When the egg hatches, your friend-companion-lover names the sun white infant _shikkkkka_ . It is a good name, you agree and use two of your many limbs to hold the cradle close to your chest. This _shikkkkka_ is precious and you croon all your secrets into their ear.

  _Shhhiib_ says your friend-companion-lover when you are old and black instead of strong and copper. You haven’t had an egg since the passing of many seasons and now you lag behind when crawling over the mountains. The hunger has dimmed and it no longer tells you to _move move move_ , instead it points out the quiet glades, the soft patches and says _sleep_ . You think your friend-companion-lover must hear the same voice because rather than follow your hatchlings in a many legged scuttle they sit with you. The swarm moves on, but you stay and knot your many legs together with your friend-companion-lover, your _Sheeek,_ and lay down your weary head.

* * *

 

The second time you are born you have wings instead of legs and come from an egg hidden away beneath the ground but more alone than you can ever remember. The world is a much larger place when you can fly. But you are strong and hold dominion over the skies.

You are too young to wonder about this different body. You don’t think to wonder _why_. The sky, an unreached place before is your home and it captures your fancy. Your feathers, scarlet and purple don’t offer the same protection as your copper plates. When you fall, hit the ground you once crawled over it hurts in a new way.

There are many new hurts to being alone, you find.

Before, you were never alone and you could never even fathom the possibility of it. Now, you can’t fathom how you did it before. Alone, your shadow floats over the ground in a singular, devastating warning to those below you. You don’t want to share this dizzying, thrilling feeling that you feel when you open your razor edged mouth and scream your challenge to the open sky.

There are many new kinds of joy of being alone, you learn.

You grow much slower in this body with wings and by the time you see another who looks like you with daring red and purple feathers, you have begun to desire a companionship. There is a strength to this body that gives you new confidence as you circle this new threat-interest. But there is a strength in the other’s body as well and you fall shrieking from the sky, black talons locked together and wings a hurricane of beating bruises.

You fall and later, when the sharpness of their eyes has muted into rounded almost-trust, rise together screaming triumph.

Alone, you were great. Together there is nothing in the sky that can offer you a threat. _Kayavar_ is what your partner-hunter-mate calls you. In return you call them _Raska_ and they preen with delight.

On a dark night, when the moons have hidden and stars are distant, glittering things, _Raska_ lays and hides an egg in a secret burrow you carved out with your black talons. You cover the entrance with foliage and sharp branches to keep away those who might try to break open the hard shell and eat the young inside.

You fly away after, the sky still holds your interest and you cannot stand to be held to the ground. Your partner-hunter-mate flies beneath you and there’s a deep satisfaction curling in your chest.

Many seasons later, there’s a storm that shakes the sky. You cannot tell up from down and the sky spits its anger in blinding bolts and pelts you with frigid water. You see a bright bolt hit your partner-hunter-mate and _Raska_ falls spinning like you once did together, but there is no sharp edge of emotion in their empty eyes. _Raska_ is your partner-hunter-mate, yours just like the sky belongs to you and you are a possessive creature; you won’t-can’t let them fall away from you. You dive, try lock your talons like you did once before, so you don’t damage those wings needed for the sky. There’s a moment of relief where you manage, but the ground’s coming up too fast and you can’t pull up. There’s a sharp pain and --

* * *

 

The third time you are born, you are born screaming. There are hands with long, nimble fingers and dull round edged nails swaddling you in something warm-soft. You are passed to between arms and cooing gazes till you come to rest in arms the colour of the sky. You are named _Isiae_ after a grandmother you never knew. Small blue skinned folk crowd around the one who holds you saying _Isiae look here_ and _Isiae my name is Kaeles_. The last is solemnly and you learn you have a brother. These are the first people you’ve been born too who hold a language other than the screams of challenge and the chitterlings of hunger.

It is with the voice and language of your third life’s people that you see the people of you first. _Chtar_ is what _Kaeles_ calls them when you are young and and looking still with awe through these eyes. He says it with derision even though this _chtar_ is twice his height and surely four times his weight. You ask him many things about them, for though you were one, you know now your life was a simple one. There was no thoughts for the movement of the stars or the idea of storing food for long, hard seasons.

_Kaeles_ tells you that the _Chtar_ are from an age long since past, when the world was a young place and _swawa_ farms didn’t litter the fields and mountains.

You tell him that the mountains from that time seemed small and clambering across the peaks was something you did without thinking. You say that the chitterlings of your friend-companion-lover were the noise you craved to hear above all others. The wildness of the land was better suited for you many legged scramble than the order of _swawa_ farms. Confidentially, because he is your brother and you speak a tongue with words rather than hunger and desperation, you say you miss the name _Shhhiib_. You butcher your first name because this mouth isn’t meant for such a guttural tongue, but you get the gist of it across.

_Kaeles_ is nearer to maturity than he is to childhood when you say this, so he doesn’t scoff your words off immediately. When he does finally move, he ruffles the hair on your head, white like the sun, and tells you your imagination is overly active.

_Kaeles_ is this first you try to tell your story to, but he is by no means the last. You are a dozen seasons older the next time you tell your old names to another. His name is _Datheel_ and you love him like you loved _Raska._ He's tall and broad for a _swawa_ , with deep blue skin that crinkles around his eyes. He has clever six fingered hands that twists raw silk into cloth and you preen when he sells his wares to your friends.

In the dark one night, with clouds rolling in low and spitting lightning, you whisper memories of the sky into his ear. You make your words roll, buoyant breathes carrying the days in the sky you still dream about. You never learned the name the _swawa_ gave to the creature of your second life, but you honour it by detailing the thrill of hunting from the wing and screaming triumph over the ground both alone and not.

_Datheel_ listen to what you say, his sun dawn eyes liquid in the dark. When you finish he asks:

_Was it real?_

You say:

_To me._

That night in the dark is the only time you tell _Datheel_ of _Raska_ and the sky. They're yours and being _Kayavar_ had made you a possessive creature; even now as _Isiae_ you loathe to share.

Only once does he ask you about your second life and it's twice the number of seasons you've seen pass later. It’s in the dawn after night and the sun is a feeble, wretched thing crawling past mountain peaks. There’s sour metal blood on your lips and you can hear rattling in your chest. You are lying in the same building that you were born and _Datheel_ stands near the head of your bed. His eyes are wide, blatantly, and unashamedly expressive. You see rage there, not sadness. He looks for all the world like he could take on time itself to force it surrender and retreat. _Swawa_ don’t pass peaceful like _chtar_ you are learning. There’s no voice in your mind allowing for the abdication of this life.

Your heart is failing and your lungs a step behind. _Datheel_ murmurs in a muted tone, a question of, does it hurt? You say just as soft, no, it never does.

* * *

 

The fourth time you are born it's to a people bound by ropes and walls. You are born blind and deaf, but you can feel the world breathing. When you cry out something large, but gentle-soft, nudges you forward. Heat radiates from it and you feel like the sun has touched your back.

You live in darkness and empty silence until your eyes clear and your ears learn how to sense vibrations. When you cry out a black scaled head dips down and dribbles magma down your throat. It burns on the way down, a liquid heat that scalds your teeth and soothes the fickle hunger in your stomach.

There are wings on your back with scales in place of feathers and you show them off proudly to the one you call _T’lik;_ he rumbles in approval, a deep shuddering sound that shakes the walls of the room you live in. It's a large room, it has to be; _T’lik_ is the largest creature you've laid eyes upon in any life. There are two long slender horns that curve gently backwards on his head, white ivory against black hide. There are holes drilled through the middle of each one with heavy metal links clanging together when he shakes his head. You bat at them till he snarls gouts of white fire that sting your paws.

You don't think to question what the chains are for until you see spindle armed creatures enter into the room. They saunter in, high voices and gunmetal skin creaking. _T’lik_ lets liquid fire stain his teeth white and _roars_ . The sound causes the spindle creatures to step back and grab something looped around their waists.  He gathers you in his claws and makes the world dark. He holds you gently, but you can hear the splatter of fire on the ground and the snap and whistle of ropes. Your world shakes, briefly; when it stops _T’lik’s_ claws go lax and you tumble to the ground.

One of the creatures scoops you up into its arms. There's four that you can see, each one long and ending in three narrow fingers. It tickles you on the underside of your stomach, where your scales are feather thin. The skin shifts in discordance between the beatings of your two hearts, both racing rapid fire. Gradually, because you are young in both body and mind in this life, the soft tickling fingers woo you into sleep.

You learn this when you wake: you were not born free. The gunmetal creatures twist bright metal chain between your horns and bind your teeth beneath a muzzle. They call you _Fulroh_ and you learn to call them _masters_.

You were meant for the sky in this life, but it's a gift rarely given. You learn to fly with your webbed finger wings under a gold silver ceiling. The chain between your horns clinking and damning while you flail in dead air. The masters on the ground talk amongst themselves and say:

_Look how it takes to the sky._

_It's gotten big, do you think it's time?_

_I know someone looking for a mount. A soldier of the Reds._

You have not known war before. Not the kind the masters fret about. You have battled hunger and time, but you have never faced an army. That changes.

You are given to one of the gunmetal skins with placid eyes and a wide, soft skinned mouth. He runs the longest of his three fingers down your snout. _You are mine,_ the gunmetal croons and reaches to hold the chain between your horns. His name is _Oro_ and he has only ever know war.

_I did not chose you,_ you say with wings and tail, your claws rasping on the ground. _I am made to be free._ The fire that smokes hot beneath the lightless scales of your chest rages and grey ash rises from the spaces between your teeth.

You learn that even though these creatures have grey skin, they are not rocks. They burn wild and wicked when your fires flares free. _Oro_ sits strapped to your back covered in shimmering links of black stone that match your scales and praises you when your fires burn the right gunmetal. They segregate themselves using colours you can't see with these eyes and use patterns to symbolize ranks that mesh poorly with the links they use as armor. You find the rank doesn't matter, they all smell the same when they burn.

The first time you see another like you -- the first since _T’lik --_ the soldiers who fight for the same master as you, smell of fear. You meet them in the air, alone, because this is not a place you can protect _Oro_. Not when you can smell the heat of fire and blood ash.

When you reach the height at they which they fly you ask a question instead of summoning fire from your chest.

_what are we?_

The question burns more strongly in you than any desire to fight.

The one like you laughs, rough and stained with smoke. _Titan,_ they say with voice and fire, _we are the gods of this world._

You have never been a god before, but you have lived and followed a preordained faith. _Gods do not bow_ , you say. Gods are not beaten and tied down with chain and made to carry others.

The one like you breathes agreement with gentle fire that rolls along your scales. The chain between your horns sings in the wind, damning with every link.

_I did not come here to fight_ you _,_ they say tail whippet thin and curling like an invitation.

You look down at the gunmetal masses, fires flare brightly in random places and the sour stink of decay reaches you even this high in the sky. You cannot see _Oro_ from here, but you know you are not so lucky to escape his gaze. He is not your _Raska_ or your _Datheel_ or your _Sheeek_ ; he is not a partner you chose to stay with due to ardor and devotion. You have placed your surrender at the feet of masters in this life; hard lost and torn away to be replaced by subservience. You know, looking at the other, you are bound to the soldiers on the ground.

You say to the one like you: _I am not a god._ God’s live once and join the stars whisper down from eternal glory to those below. You know this, taught to you as _Isaie_ at your mother’s knee with your brother held in the crook of your father’s arm.

They blink once, fish slick inner lid obscuring oil eyes. Then their chest glows, grey light seeping from behind black scales and white fire roars past needle teeth. You learn this: your people are proud in this life, and they handle rejection poorly. Still, they are the one who falls and lies smoking on the ground with you poised on top and offering their body like a gift.

_Oro_ lays his head between your horns and whispers prayers and sticky blood promises.

In retribution, perhaps, or a chance of fate, you don’t live long enough in this life to see another of your kind. The blood you swallowed when fighting against the other eats you out from the inside.  When you die, empty of fire and smoke and pitted wings, it’s a twisted relief.

* * *

 

The fifth time you are born you aren’t born to parents of flesh. You wake with a body spun of seafoam and blood of cold water currents. You wake with seawater eyes and a whisper of allure in your ocean fury heart. The stars whisper in your ears when you break the surface and offer names you can take. _Strilgun_ and _Baeki_ and _Utnal_ and so many more they give and you wail low and long and plead for them to stop. Your voice echoes off the waves; a sharp, dual toned song born of coastal winds.

In the distance lights flare off of ocean waves; small orange flares that draw you in until you can hear the rough chopping of water on wood and the soft bur of voices. The small craft tilts ominously when you swim close, your bulk forcing the water to shift. The voices on board spike in volume when they see a glimpse of your tail, long, flat, deep water blue and flaring like a ‘T’. You can hear them running to cluster about the ship’s railings, followed by the sharp jangle of metal. You twist sharply around the ship, your body curving serpentine and you side fins fanning out though in welcome or in threat you aren’t yet sure.

_Naga_ the stars whisper, _Elno_ , _Wakasa._

_Echo_ , you hum. _I am Echo_ . You spurn the whispers of the sky and croon instead at the ship, _I am Echo I am Echo I am Echo._

The creatures on the ship, pale and breaths clouding the air, lean over the ledge. You look at their faces; if you turn just right and let the water and darkness dim your sight they could pass for _swawa_. You croon a greeting and it reverberates like whalesong.

Cautiously, one waves and says something in a light tone, but reverent in a way you have never known. One by one, the gleam of moonlight on metal disappears from the hands of the ship's passengers. They bring a closed fist to their chest, pressing hard so that the armour they wear creaks under the force and sink low on one knee. _Theà_ they say and you hear a voice of another saying _we are the gods of this world_. The words made ash and dust, but carved into your bones with blood and fire.

_I am Echo_ , you say, _and I am not a god._

Gods live once then join the stars. You know this. You learned this lifetimes ago. Yet, looking at the ship and the figures bowed low and brought silent before you, you start to wonder what you are.

When you leave the ship and catch the tail end of a cold current that drags you deep beneath the surface you forget your worries and instead listen in quiet awe as the ocean whispers her secrets in your ears. You chase the ocean’s voice, marveling as it rages in the fury of a storm caught in a typhoon between the cusp of land and sea. When the anger calms into placidity you swim amongst the wreckage that sinks into the deep.

_I am what I am_ the voice of the water says, not regretful for what she has done when you find the small bodies of land folk caught in branches now buried in the sand.

From there, you travel to shallow waters where you think you may broil in the heat. But the water is gentle in this new place and tugs you back to her cold saltwater depths. Careful, and caution and wariness are whispered through shoals of fish that dart away when you come too close. You think, the water might be trying to teach you something, but you head for the fjords next. The water stays cold against your skin and she whispers _here I am winter_. Winter, you learn, means cold and waves that try to reach over cliffs and make land and water one. Here, the land folk are vicious and sail in their strange ships. The water looks after them with fondness, and takes care to protect their travels in all but the greatest of her rages.

It is with sorrow that you leave there, but the world is vast and there is an ache in you to _move_ . You are not _Shhhiib,_ but there is still a part of her in you and you bow to the wish of your oldest life.

You think you cross the world twice over before coming to rest in the cool wading pool waters of a cove. The gravel bottom grates against your hide and itches the hard to reach places just so. You lounge there for several days, allowing the braver birds to pick mites and other bits from your hide. The ocean's tide rolls in and out, keeping the temperature of the water acceptable, and far colder than what could be found on equatorial shores.

On your third day of staying in the shallows, your last day you think; you've frightened off most the small breeds of fish that inhabit this area and you know you'll have to head to deeper waters to find more, one of the land folk appears on shore. It's a small one, pinkish and wrapped in coarse looking clothe but carrying something dead in one hand. They walk staunchly up to you, with your head basking in the weak light on the shore line and drop the scraggly bit of fur. They say something, chest puffed out and voice high and then point from you to the fur bit.

You shift slightly and the swell of water that rises threatens to rise to rise up past their knees causes them to scramble back on the rocky shore.

You think, when they look at you, not with reverence but with curiosity that they look like a too clever fish. You leave the fur bit on the ground and inch your way back into the rising tide. The small creature watches you all the while, and when you disappear from the surface you imagine you can still feel their eyes upon your back.

Perhaps that is why you return to the cove the next day and then again the day after that. The small creature greets you there again and this time you bring a glittering rock from the ocean depths. They cry, delighted, and wrap their arms around your snout. You let them scramble over your back and later rest on the curve of your tail.

You leave the small cove again when the tide rises up and calls you back to the deep, but you promise to return and the music of your voice echoes over the waves.

You leave for longer this time; the voice of the sea rippling down the coast of an untamed land across the deep ocean. The changing of the seasons brings you back to the small cove however , the whisper of the water in your ears counting down the days. The small creature greets there again. They look a bit older, slightly taller but just as delighted with your gift of stone.

This pattern continues for years, and then you meet the little creature's child one summer's day. They wave to you, and you shudder with the despair you will have to start to carry more stones in your travels.

Slowly, in lazy days spent on shores you learn to copy their words. Their words that you speak come out in half songs that cause your throat to sting and you do so sparingly.

Their names are _Duvessa_ and _Sorcha_ and _Duvessa_ says she has another child on the way. The child will be a boy, she thinks and she plans to name him _Rowan_. You croon your happiness and promise to bring more rocks. They laugh and say they'd like fish instead. You promise to bring those too.

On and on it goes, until _Reagan_ , the great grandchild of _Sorcha’s_ own child says there is a blight. The potatoes are rotting in the ground, he says and they are running out of food. Him and his family are going to _America_ and it's the land of dreams he says.

You follow them there too and the water whispers in your ear as you cross the deep waters once again. You bring them rocks of their home country when they land and they cry and say goodbye. Goodbyes, you learn, are much worse when you cannot follow.

They live further from the sea here and it's only once a year that they make the travel to come visit. But you wait, patiently and offer coins of pirate's gold when they come back to the water.

_All things must end_ the soul of the ocean whispers into your ear and you know then that she doesn't just mean you land visits.

You find a quiet place, far north where the only things that live are the landlocked birds. You sink deep beneath the waves and --

* * *

 

The sixth time you are born, it is also the seventh, but you don't realize that at first. You wake up with eyes that see through time and a body made of possibilities. _Ka-la_ you call yourself and you learn the art of creation.

You become _Ni-men_ then too, because greatness needs an opposite and strength always has a weakness.

You are _Ka-la_ and you are mighty, but in the spaces between strength and greatness you huddle in dying breathes and predawn shadows, and there, you are _Ni-men._

You would be content to remain as both, but there is something you must do understand first and that cannot be done with fingers made for planetary construction or fingers meant for hiding. And so, you die once more.

* * *

 

The eighth time you are born, you are born with ten pink skinned fingers and into a family you already know. You are named _Emily_ . Your parents (your mother is _Reagan’s_ granddaughter, you are sure of it) take you to the beach every year and look for something that’s not there anymore. You think about telling them, but then you see a history made of gold and shimmering gems tucked away in the storage closet and think better of it.

_You have to go to school_ your father says when you're five and the rest of your age-mates are still learning to tie their shoes.

_No I don't_ you say with conviction.

From now until the end of all things, you think, you will be unsure as to how you ended up in front of red bricked building with a backpack on your shoulders and a bus number written on a scrap of paper. When you're hustled into the building you remain resolute in your glaring. You feel viciously satisfied when your classmates refuse to sit text to you after catching your eye.

And other than some unexpected hurdles like school and social rules, everything is going okay. Until you are fifteen and your parents are called by the school's secretary and told they _need to come in immediately, there's a problem at school._ They come, of course, although you almost wish they didn't.

They say nothing on the car ride home, both ice white anger and black disgust.

_Why did you do that?_ Your mother asks when she's calmed down later in the evening. You shrug and fiddle with the sable strands of your hair, _felt like it_ you reply.

_That's not what your teacher said._

_I don't like her._

_She had to go to the hospital, Emily._

_She was… rude._

_Mrs. Saab told me Rose was talking about horses. How is that rude?_

_She said that she got to_ break _a new one on the weekend. Why should she get to make anything have to do something they don't want to?_

You can tell by your mother's face that she doesn't understand your fears chased by memories of chains and smoke and webbed finger wings. You sit quiet until your mother leaves, resolute in not answering anymore questions; the part of you that is _Kayavar_ is too proud to justify your actions any further. Looking down at your nails, you can still see lines of russet under your nails.

_I am made to be free,_ Fulroh had said with chains on his horns and you don’t have his fire any more, but you have his desire. You can hear your parents talking in the kitchen, so you slip down the hall, past the living room and into the basement. You know when your uncle last came to visit he left money for your parents to give you for your birthday. It’s still where he left it, tucked in the broken vent behind the grandfather clock. It’s not much, but you buy a bus ticket, sneering when the attendant asks your age.

You get off on a desolate stretch of coastline. The dull roar of waves both familiar and entirely new greets you when you stand in the water.

_What am I?_ You ask. Who you are asking, you don’t know. But the water burbles when it slides over your toes. Your pants are wet up to the knees when you turn to head back to to the road.

There is something standing there. Tall and twisted like a shadow, arms long like spider legs and neck stretched out like a crane. You _hear_ it smile. Night skin crackling to say:

_You’ve asked that in almost every life haven’t you? What am I? But this is the first that you’ve asked and meant_ yourself _. Can you guess what you are?_

You step back instinctively. _No_ , you say, then, _a god?_

It prowls forward, stretching out like a cat and pausing at the water’s edge. _Once_ , it says, _you were_ . _Ka-la was a god. Emily is not._

You pause, there is something familiar about the shadow. You swallow and your mouth feels full sand. _I am a god._ You say again. _Ka-la is apart of Emily._

_Once, you were a god._ It says. _But no more._ The monster crosses scant few feet of water like a wraith, shadow limbs snaking across the surface like a plague. It lifts one smoking finger and places it on your head; for a moment you feel the familiar drag of blackness and you can almost see a ninth life. Then it lowers it’s finger. _Do you see now?_

_Yes_.

Death smiles.

_Good._ _Find a way to reach others like you, and see what you can create._

You go home. You catch a series of rides from strangers, zigzagging back on highways and backroads. It’s on the wrong side of midnight when you take the key from under the doormat and slip in the door. The hallway is dark, but you can hear the faint sound of breathing when you walk past your parents’ door. You lean on the door frame and whisper a soft apology. The you walk mouse quiet up the stairs to your room. Your computer is where you left it and you smile. You doubt you’ll have access when your parents wake in the morning.

You open an empty word document and start typing, pigeon pecks flowing into a ten figured race as dawn gets closer. When you’re finished you post the document on a series of anonymous sites.

This is how it starts:

_Once, you were a God._

This is how it ends:

_I am._

  
  


* * *

  
  
  


This is what happens next:

A boy born a half world away and thriving in the abandoned places opens a link on a stolen computer. He doesn't know the letters, used to needle thin lines that break ancient pictures into single words but he thinks, looking at the screen, he can learn.

_Wang Liu Mu_ is the name he was offered in this life. Before that he was _Yesuto Zebenjo_ and he lived in a land still primal in its infancy.

He tucks the laptop into his backpack, laces up his shoes and starts walking. There is a language to learn and a secret to understand. He thinks that perhaps, that this story in a language he can't yet read and touched by Death's own hand, might give him an answer to a question that he desires.

_What am I?_

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
